Articles by
Josh

As I noted over the weekend, the chorus of people denouncing Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech stunt has continued to grow, now stretching into the most establishment figures of American Jewry and even from many who have in the past been friendly and reflexively supportive of Netanyahu. Abe Foxman, head of the ADL is the most prominent, most recent example. But the counter-attack is coming, despite limited support for the speech within the American Jewish community or anywhere else except among extreme Republican partisans. (Now even Tucker Carlson has joined the anti-Dermer chorus.)

The Supreme Court has just denied Alabama's last ditch effort to avoid issuing same-sex marriage licenses. And the nature of the rejection seems to provide the best evidence yet of what's coming on the big national question about the constitutionality of any bans on same sex marriage. The only dissenters were reportedly Scalia and Thomas. And Thomas wrote - correctly, it would seem - that this is a good indication of how the whole court will eventually rule.

A TPM Reader put together this site which, as he describes it, "represents an attempt to record every incident of gun violence reported by online news outlets in January of 2015. The incidents covered represent 50% of estimated homicides by firearm and 7% of non-fatal shootings this month." Check it out. I won't say it's 'cool' for obvious reasons. But it's very well put together.

Think the Netanyahu speech lead up is going well? Now even Abe Foxman, head of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), one of the oldest and most respected institutions of American Jewry, is saying the speech should be canceled. Foxman has run the ADL for almost thirty years. In the American Jewish community, it does not get anymore establishment than that.

There's talk today of a poll boomlet for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. And he's clearly demonstrating that he's serious about running for President.

It's probably a given that I'm not a huge fan of Scott Walker's. And I do not think he'd be a terribly strong general election candidate. But I do think, as I mentioned a few months ago, that he's much stronger than is generally understood and a more viable candidate than most of the other potential candidates who get vastly more coverage and speculation.